Christmas at Costa Coffee

Christmas at Costa

Last week Patrick and I were invited by the lovely folk at Costa Coffee to attend a bloggers get together to check out their Christmas range which they claimed to be more exciting than ever. The email invite that I received mentioned loads of new and exciting drinks, snacks and treats. To be honest they had me ‘Coffee’ as I am a fiend for the stuff! Patrick on the other hand likes the stuff but was more interested in the treats they promised, given his sweet tooth.

The event was held on the basement floor of the College Green Costa Coffee store and what met us was a surprise as neither of us had been down to that level before. Bare stone walls, dimmed and festive lighting, a talented pair of musicians and of course the treats! They looked the business but as they say ‘it’s all in the taste’.

We both grabbed a plate and got picking … I chose the Mince Tart and Chocolate Yule log. Patrick chose a Marshmallow Chocolate Cupcake and some other tart with a fruity filling. Now you can’t visit Costa Coffee without a coffee so to keep in the festive swing, I chose a Salted Caramel Latte and Patrick went for the Honeycomb and Cream Hot Chocolate.

So what was the verdict? Let’s start with the Coffee … Well the fact that Costa Coffee is chosen by Gennaro Pelliccia, a coffee taster, who had his tongue insured for £10m a few years back and the fact that just 1% of the world’s production of coffee is good enough for Costa to choose from, I knew that the base of my Salted Caramel Latte would be perfect … did the frills live up to it’s name. Yes, I loved it. Patrick chose the Hot Chocolate and as he wiped the cream from his lip, he gave this festive Honeycomb Cream addition a big thumbs up.

So onto the treats … out of the four we chose I have to say that our favourites were definitely the Mince Tart and the Marshmallow Chocolate Cupcake. The buttery pastry of the Mince Tart wasn’t heavy and the ratio of filling was perfect. I’m not the biggest fan of almonds but the crunchy almonds that were sprinkled on top worked really well. Personally I think that no person in their right mind can pass up a cupcake, however and unfortunate as it is, sometimes cupcakes fail, not this one. Topped with a marshmallow frosting and of course a marshmallow, the chocolate sponge of the cupcake keeps on giving as you realise it has a vanilla marshmallow filling … yum!

The price of Costa’s Christmas drinks vary but range from €3.45/£2.85. The price of Costa’s Christmas treats also vary and range from €2.45/£1.65. If you’re not into cakes there are some really delicious biscuits and snacks to choose from too, we got to take home a goodie bag that included Mini Chocolate Cornflake Clusters and Ruby The Reindeer Iced Ginger Biscuits and they didn’t last long … they were delightful!

Here’s a bit of Costa Coffee trivia for you;

Costa was founded by Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa in 1971.

All Costa coffee comes from 100% Rainforest Alliance certified farms.

Costa invests heavily in training and Baristas are coached in the art of coffee-making at the company’s own purpose-built training academies around the world.

The Costa Foundation was set up in 2006 to give something back to the communities within the countries from which Costa sources its coffee beans.

Costa Coffee employs more than 500 people here on the Island of Ireland.

For more information on Costa Coffee you can visit their site here www.costaireland.ie but before that why not check out the Costa Coffee Ireland Facebook and Twitter competition to win €£100! Here are the details from the horse’s mouth …

As our cups are red all year round we wanted to really spoil our coffee loving customers this Christmas with our four new Christmas cup designs, Shorty – Cortado size, Ginger – Primo, Snowy – Medio and the big one; Red – Massimo. These are available in all our stores from Thursday 7th of November right throughout the Christmas season.

Since we’re so excited about our cups, we are running loads of competitions and promotions on social media over the course of Christmas. For the first, we’re inviting our customers to “Ho Ho Hold up” their Costa Cups, snap a photo and send it to us on Facebook or Twitter, using #ChristmasAtCosta. We’ll then stick them in a draw for up to €/£100 worth of coffee!